Thursday, September 8, 2011

First Fall Run

The first Fall run is nice. You realize you’re faster than you thought, without 100-degree
weather draining you of all but the minimal energy required to maintain running
status. Everything feels lighter
and all bouncy, and you run like you’re running away from something the entire
7 miles or whatever distance.

If some mal-intending bum or crazy person spotted you
towards the end of your run and thought you an easy target, thinking you’re
probably all worn out from that running, he’d be wrong! You have more energy than when you started an hour ago. You are almost sprinting.

There’s something else, too. Change, literally, stirs the air. You feel a distant nostalgia for moments that took place
long ago, for seconds, days, people and opportunities you’ve lost forever. But you also wonder, excitedly,
what’s to come.

You take long, rhythmic strides, leaping over obstacles
(because you remember), with your chin up (you breathe better that way). You take it all in, because it is ever
so brief.

large bodies of water, particularly the ocean, and everything that goes with it: the endless shades of blue and green and grey and white, the sounds of waves and seagulls, its expansiveness, its restorative nature.